Companies, including manufacturers and vendors of products, warranty their products, including but not limited to hardware and software components. The warranties for products are often handled by an “after-sales” department, such as customer support. When a product requires replacement or maintenance, the validity of the warranty determines whether the expense is covered by the guarantor of the warranty. To determine whether a product is under warranty, it is not enough to track only the warranty period, for example, by correlating the warranty number to its validity period. However, many products, including but not limited to, hardware components, have maximum usage numbers that contribute to whether an item is covered under a warranty. If the maximum usage has been exceeded, a unit may not be covered.
Although a warranty number is public, the maximum usage number is often confidential so that a user cannot access it and manipulate it.
A need therefore exists for a system and method of storing confidential warranty-related information, including but not limited to, the maximum usage number for a given component.